Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time, and attempts to address it require a clear understanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space. While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes, vast areas of the tropics remain understudied. In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world's most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity, but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepresented in biodiversity databases. To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications may eliminate pieces of the Amazon's biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological communities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge, it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple organism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region's vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most neglected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lost

Avaliação fitoquímica e atividade antioxidan e, antimutagênica e toxicológica do extrato aquoso das folhas de Ocimum gratissimum L.

A espécie Ocimum gratissimum L., popularmente conhecida como alfavaca, é uma planta muito usada na medicina tradicional brasileira, à qual são atribuídas diversas atividades terapêuticas quando usada na forma de infuso de suas folhas. Neste estudo foi realizada a caracterização fitoquímica, a avaliação da ação antioxidante e a investigação dos efeitos antimutagênico e antigenotóxico, além do efeito mutagênico e genotóxico potencial do extrato aquoso liofilizado a parir das folhas de O. gratissimum (EAOG). O conteúdo de polifenóis totais no extrato foi determinado pelo método Folin-Ciocalteu, sendo encontrado 11,3 µg EAG/mg de EAOG. A atividade antioxidante foi avaliada pelo teste do 1,1-difenil-2-picril hidrazil (DPPH•), apresentando IC50 de 83,0 µg/mL. A antimutagenicidade e mutagenicidade foram avaliadas em cepas de Salmonella typhimurium (TA98 e TA100) utilizando o teste Salmonella/microssoma (Salmonella typhimurium/microssomas) em diferentes concentrações. EAOG induziu a atividade antimutagênica para a cepa TA98. A mutagenicidade não foi observada para o extrato em ambas as linhagens. Adicionalmente, a ação antigenotoxica avaliada pelo teste de clivagem do DNA-plasmidial também foi observada para EAOG. Os resultados também demonstraram que o extrato não foi capaz de induzir a genotoxicidade pelo teste empregado. Este estudo relata, pela primeira vez, as propriedades antimutagênica e antigenotóxica do extrato aquoso de O. gratissimum

Pap Smear, Hybrid Capture Ii, And Visual Inspection In Screening For Uterine Cervical Lesions [citologia Oncológica, Captura De Híbridos Ii E Inspeção Visual No Rastreamento De Lesões Cervicais.]

The objective of this study was to evaluate alterations in Pap smear, hybrid capture II (HCII), and visual inspection with acetic acid (VIA) in 684 women treated at a primary health care unit. The performance and agreement of the exams were evaluated. The study also described social, demographic, and reproductive factors and their association with uterine cervical lesions. Women had specimens taken for Pap smear, HCII, and VIA. When at least one of the tests was positive, colposcopy was performed and targeted biopsies were taken from any suspicious lesions. Performance of tests was evaluated. Women's distribution in relation to social, demographic, and reproductive factors and histological diagnosis was evaluated using the odds ratio. Among 198 women with at least one positive screening test, only 21 showed histological disease. Sensitivities of the tests were similar. VIA and Pap smear presented higher specificity than HCII. Only absence of a previous Pap smear was associated with the presence of histological disease. Pap smear performed better than VIA and HC II. Absence of previous cytology was associated with histological disease.21114114